September has been both an eternity and a millisecond, a theme shared by every month this year. All that matters is I had a birthday, ate bagels, and finally joined the tiny camera gang.

The Florida Project (2017)

I know I’m late to this party but I finally watched it, this kaleidoscope of colors and emotions and moments, just moments, and as soon as the credits rolled I burst into tears; I felt just as helpless as Willem Dafoe looked as his character went outside to smoke a cigarette to escape it all just... why, why my God. Why.

Adulthood Rites

Book two in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis series continues to impress. I am in awe of the truly alien culture with truly alien motivations unfolding here. Yet, despite all the alienness, these strangers’ objectives are beginning to make sense.

There is so much compassion in the portrayals of all these characters. Understanding is the mission, unity is the goal.

Much to process.

Raised by Wolves

Like Xenogenesis, the Earth is destroyed. Unlike Xenogenesis, the aliens didn’t arrive to give humanity a second chance. But maybe the androids will.

Fantastic premise. Fantastic visuals. Fantastic mullets.

Fantastic sci-fi.

Aaron Guzikowski created something excellent here, and Ridley Scott directing the first two episodes is just the cherry on top.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

I must applaud Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal for how they added depth to this legendary video game character (honestly, these are two of my favorite video game developers). Over three games (Tomb Raider, Rise, and Shadow) they reintroduced Lara Croft as a young, inexperienced woman who courageously goes to great lengths to rescue her friends and then grew her into the confident archeologist we have known and loved.

Some quibbles with gameplay and writing notwithstanding, it is rare to see this type of longterm character development in video games because of the huge, inherent financial and time commitments. To successfully pull off an arc that plays out over three games is impressive.

Great, great work. Well done introducing so much humanity to an icon in gaming.